170 DAIIWINIANISM. 



the Linnean Society on the evening of July 1st, 1858. 

 That meeting was, for the Origin, critical. It was then 

 and there that the first boom of the coming battle was 

 heard. Sir Charles Lyell and Sir Joseph Hooker 

 together had to that authoritative Society a communi- 

 cation to make. It consisted in "the joint paper of 

 Messrs. C. Darwin and A. Wallace, of which the full 

 title was, On the Tendency of Species to form Varieties, 

 and on the Perpetuation of Varieties and Species by 

 Natural Means of Selection." Both Sir Charles Lyell 

 and Sir Joseph Hooker " made a few remarks, chiefly 

 with a view of impressing on those present the necessity 

 of giving the most careful consideration to what they had 

 heard." What happened further Sir Joseph describes 

 thus : " The interest excited was intense, but the subject 

 was too novel and too ominous for the old school to enter 

 the lists, before armouring. After the meeting it was 

 talked over with bated breath : Lyell's approval, and 

 perhaps in a small way mine, as his lieutenant in the 

 affair, rather overawed the Fellows, who would otherwise 

 have flown out against the doctrine." The publication of 

 this paper, so authoritatively communicated, could only, 

 of course, still further attract attention and increase ex- 

 citement ; while Sir Charles Lyell and Sir Joseph Hooker 

 must have continued in a variety of ways both publicly 

 and privately to constitute foci of ever new and ever 

 growing agitation. What in this way was undoubtedly 

 most decisive, however, took place at Aberdeen, when Sir 

 Charles Lyell, as President of the British Association in 

 1859, announced to that august body the proximate 

 appearance of the Origin of Species. His referent words 

 were these: "On this difficult and mysterious subject 

 a work will very shortly appear by Mr. Charles Darwin, 

 the result of twenty years of observations and experi- 

 ments in Zoology, Botany, and Geology, by which he has 



